It is well known in the art to implant a prosthesis in the intramedullary canal of a femur in connection with hip replacement of a human. Surgical cement is conventionally used for anchoring the prosthesis in the canal. Sometimes the prosthesis loosens in the cement, resulting in the necessity for the patient to re-undergo surgery to re-cement the prosthesis in place.
Rotatable cutter tools adapted to be driven by some form of motor unit are known in the hip replacement art as well as in many other areas of the medical arts.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,399,813 dated Aug. 23, 1983 in the name of Forest C. Barber and entitled Apparatus and Method for Removing a Prosthesis Embedded in Skeletal Bone, discloses a rotatable cutter or burr for forming an undercut ledge in a fragment of a prosthesis, for aiding in removal of the prosthesis fragment from embedment in a bone. Such rotatable cutter or burr does not embody any means for limiting or defining a predetermined amount of undercutting resulting from operation of the tool nor is there any teaching of a method in such patent relating to preparation of a human femur for receipt of an implantable prosthesis by providing grooves in the interior surface of the intramedullary canal of the femur.
Various other patents are known in the art which disclose tools for use in hip replacement; however, none of these patents to applicant's knowledge, teach a method of preparing a femur for an implantable prosthesis by providing grooves in the interior surface of the intramedullary canal of the femur, nor tools especially adapted for use in creating grooves in the intramedullary canal of the femur.